LPIC-1 101-500 study guide
LPIC-1 101-500 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
LPIC-1 is the first certification in the multi-level Linux professional certification program of the Linux Professional Institute (LPI). It validates a candidate's ability to perform maintenance tasks on the command line, install and configure a computer running Linux, and configure basic networking. There are no prerequisites, and the certification is awarded only after passing two separate exams, 101 and 102. Both are currently version 5.0, with exam codes 101-500 and 102-500. Topics on this exam: System Architecture, Linux Installation and Package Management, GNU and Unix Commands, and Devices, Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. The LPIC-1 101-500 study guide has 4 sections and about 1,221 words.
01System Architecture
The 101 exam treats hardware and boot as one connected story. Know the boot sequence cold: firmware (BIOS or UEFI) → bootloader (GRUB2) → kernel plus initramfs → init/systemd.
283 words, about 1 min02Linux Installation and Package Management
Expect two package worlds: Debian ( dpkg low level, apt high level) and RPM ( rpm low level, yum / dnf / zypper high level). Learn the split clearly.
299 words, about 1 min03GNU and Unix Commands
This domain is the largest and rewards precision about flags and pipelines. Master text processing: grep ( -i -v -r -E -c -n ), sed (substitution s/old/new/g , -i in-place, -n plus p ), awk ( -F , $1 , NR , NF ), and cut , sort ( -n -r -k -u ), uniq ( -c -d only on sorted input), tr , head / tail ( -n , -f ).
336 words, about 2 min04Devices, Linux Filesystems, Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
Treat the exam's device, filesystem, and FHS objectives as one study unit, because questions blur them: a partition question quickly becomes a mount and /etc/fstab question. Devices: block vs character devices, major/minor numbers ( ls -l /dev ), /dev/sdX naming, and udev.
303 words, about 2 min